Changing Humanitarian Action? Keynote presentation and high-level panel

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. That was the recurring theme of ALNAP Director John Mitchell's keynote presentation, opening the Network's 31st Annual Meeting 'Changing Humanitarian Action?'

Before offering his reflections on the background paper, John Mitchell posed the questions: what is change? How does it happen? Are we any good at it? Exploring the ideas contained in the paper, he went on to discuss the 'unique' features of the humanitarian system, the changes seen in the humanitarian system, what we have learned from these, and how we can do change better. 

A high-level panel then discussed the issues and questions raised by the keynote presentation and the background paper. The panel was made up of Duncan Green, Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam, Margareta Wahlström, former Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Jemilah Mahmood, Under Secretary General for Partnerships at the IFRC, and Pat Pegg Jones, an independent Organisation Development Consultant.